![\"Woman](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Beach-bike-ride-1200x800.jpg\")
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Image source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Many of us (including myself) worry about the level of support the State Pension will offer in retirement. How large will it be, and at what age will I be able to claim it?<\/p>\n
In fact, will the State Pension even be around two to three decades from now?<\/p>\n
These aren\u2019t worries I\u2019m prepared to sit back and accept while I have time to do something about it. I\u2019m taking steps today to help me become totally financially independent in later life.<\/p>\n
Want to see what I\u2019m doing?<\/p>\n
Targeting a million<\/p>\n
To my mind, saving instead of investing is a major mistake that millions of Britons fall into.<\/p>\n
Okay, money put in the bank provides a guaranteed return, and the value of my investment will never fall. The same can\u2019t be said with assets that are traded on the stock market.<\/p>\n
Yet cash savings provide the sort of terrible returns that can leave retirees dangerously short of funds. This to my mind is a greater risk, given the strong long-term profits that share investing tends to provide.<\/p>\n
Someone who puts \u00a3500 a month into a Cash ISA<\/a>, for instance, would likely have just \u00a3216,879 in their nest egg after 30 years. For a Stocks and Shares ISA<\/a> investor, the amount would be above a million (\u00a31,047,026 to be exact). These numbers are based on Moneyfacts data since 2015.<\/p>\n The Magnificent 7<\/p>\n There are several ways to use retirement savings to make a second income. My plan is to invest in a diversified portfolio of dividend shares providing me with regular cash payouts.<\/p>\n Of course dividends are never guaranteed. But investing in shares spanning different sectors and regions can make one\u2019s income stream more consistent.<\/p>\n I think a strong, seven-stock portfolio could look something like this:<\/p>\n This collection contains both fixed-income assets (bonds) and a large range of equities. In fact, it provides exposure to more than 70 companies thanks to the inclusion of the Chelverton UK Dividend Trust.<\/p>\n What I like about this trust is its high weighing of UK dividend shares (92% today). While this creates more concentrated regional risk, it also means it\u2019s focused on the most dividend-heavy stock market on the planet.<\/p>\n Chelverton\u2019s holdings span industries as varied as mining, financial services, healthcare, telecoms, and consumer goods. This gives it strength to pay a robust, growing dividend over time \u2014 annual payout growth has averaged 6.3% over the last five years.<\/p>\n An investors with a million-pound ISA like the one I described earlier, invested equally across this portfolio could generate a huge annual dividend income of \u00a376,433. That would likely more than make up for any State Pension shortfalls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Image source: Getty Images Many of us (including myself) worry about the level of support the State Pension…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3093],"tags":[51,474,2499,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-604518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-personal-finance","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115642157121965009","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Dividend share<\/strong>Sector<\/strong>Dividend yield<\/strong><\/tr>\n \n Phoenix Group<\/strong><\/td>\n Financial services<\/td>\n 8%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Pfizer<\/strong><\/td>\n Pharmaceuticals<\/td>\n 6.7%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n iShares Broad $ High Yield Corp Bond ETF<\/strong><\/td>\n Exchange-traded funds (ETFs)<\/td>\n 7.5%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Tritax Big Box REIT<\/strong><\/td>\n Real estate investment trusts (REITs)<\/td>\n 5.5%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Kraft Heinz<\/strong><\/td>\n Food processing<\/td>\n 6.4%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n US Solar Fund<\/strong><\/td>\n Energy<\/td>\n 7.2%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Chelverton UK Dividend Trust<\/strong> (LSE:SDV<\/a>)<\/td>\n Investment trusts<\/td>\n 9.5%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n